


Rare Pair Shorts

by runningscissors



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Community: rarepair_shorts, F/M, Hogwarts Era, Hogwarts Sixth Year, Originally Posted Elsewhere, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:21:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23772235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runningscissors/pseuds/runningscissors
Summary: "It’s not a question because she knows he will; he always does everything she tells him to do."Table prompts originally written for rarepair_shorts @ LiveJournal in 2008/2009. Uncompleted, so posting as is.
Relationships: Gregory Goyle/Pansy Parkinson
Kudos: 2





	1. Whipped (Or the Crude Way of Saying a Gentleman)

**Prompt:** _never really existed_

_Leather is always cold in the morning_ Greg thinks to himself as he runs his hands over the divots on the black leather couch in the common room.

Well, everything is cold in the dungeons, except for the fireplace, that is.

Greg lays his head against the back of the couch and yawns. He’s tired, it was his turn to play watchdog for Draco last night, as he did Salazar knows what.

He’s pretty sure if he has to drink one more batch of polyjuice potion, he’ll spew all over. Nothing tastes as revolting as liquid mud. 

There’s a small clinking noise, and Greg looks up to see Pansy traipsing down the staircase leading from the girls’ wing.

Greg watches in awe, as Pansy descends the steps like she’s a debutant. She does this every morning, the grand entrance of the beautiful Pansy Parkinson.

No doubt she does this for the attention of others, and it works, because Greg can’t take his eyes off her.

  
  
Greg likes Pansy: he likes the way her sleek dark hair swishes around her shoulders as she walks. He likes the way the gloss over her pink lips shimmers when hit with a certain angle of light. He likes the way she has an opinion for everything and how her eyes would light up as she spilled the latest gossip at dinner or around the common room fire.

He likes a lot of things about Pansy.

_“Gregory,”_ she calls over her shoulder as she walks towards the portrait hole. “Carry my books for me.” It’s not a question because he knows that she knows he will; he always does everything she tells him to do. But just in case she flutters her lashes momentarily at him.

Greg jumps up from the couch and hurries to grab the textbooks from Pansy’s outstretched hand. 

He can smell her perfume, and it makes his mouth water.

They walk down the corridor in silence; Pansy is picking at her pristine nails and Gregory juggling his own set of books, plus Pansy’s.

“Have you seen Draco this morning?” She asks casually, though he hears the edge of something more.

He shakes his head, and her lips tighten together.

“Oh.”

After a few more seconds of silence, in which Greg desperately wishes he could find the courage to say something intelligent – Pansy loud voice fills the void with her retelling of how 'Tracey is the biggest tart'.

“I mean, really. If she wants to stick her tongue down every boy’s throat, well, then that’s her problem. But it’s not very becoming of a pure-blooded witch, in my opinion.” 

He listens, enthralled with every word that drips from her mouth like expensive honey, and grunts his agrees when asked a question he knows he’s supposed to say yes to. 

She continues to chatter away up to the Great Hall, Greg’s lost track of what she’d been talking about by this point. He’s just been staring at the way her pretty pink lips form the words.

As they turn to head into the Great Hall, Pansy stops and turns to Greg. “Just so you know, Gregory.” She says, her voice calm and even. “There really was nothing between Draco and me.” His eyes brows lift, “You can tell him that.”

And with that, she spins on her heel and heads into the Great Hall with her chin head high. “Are you coming?” she calls over her shoulder, the impatience leaking through.

Gregory can’t help the small smile that lifts his lips as he sprints after Pansy and her swishing dark locks.


	2. This is No Job for a Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Gregory has exactly thirty galleons in his pocket, and he wants to buy Pansy a present."

**Prompt:** _to run great risks_

The frosty air nips at the tip of his nose as he shuffles down the cobbled street of Hogsmeade. He’s already seen two Ravenclaw girls fall to their boney arses, so he steps lightly, trying to avoid treading over hidden ice.

Gregory has exactly seventy galleons in his pocket and a list of all the people he needs to buy Christmas presents for. He had lost Vince somewhere in Honeydukes, but truthfully, he didn’t really care. He had tired of listening to Vince bitch about Draco anyways.

A cold gust of wind blows in through the west and Greg pulls his cloak tighter to his hulking frame. His ears feel frozen, even though he’s got on that fur-lined cap his mother packed into his trunk.

A bell chimes and he looks up to see a snug and cozy-looking Pansy Parkinson step out of Gladrags Wizardwear, his heart races. Great Salazar’s beard, she looks good. 

She notices him and walks over, the corners of her frosted pink lips tugging into the beginnings of a grin.

Point for Gregory Goyle.

“Where’s Draco?”  
  


_Bugger._

He plays it cool and just shrugs. Pansy rolls her eyes, and they walk on. Greg notices her adjust her grip on her shopping bag.

“Want me to carry that for you?” His voice comes out in a low rasp.

She tosses her hair behind her shoulders and thrusts her heavy parcel into his hand. “I see _someone_ was raised to be a gentleman.”

He shrugs again, but this time accompanies it with a grunt. 

“Where were you headed?” she asks as she fixes the collar of her grey tweed cloak. Dark hair falls back into her face again, and she pushes it back.

“I gotta get somethin’ for my mum.” He stumbles out. He can’t believe she just asked him a question that didn’t concern her. She’s never done that before.  
  


Score!

“Well, I’m done all my shopping,” she says sharply, her voice cutting through the wind like a knife. It’s beautiful to Gregory’s meaty ears. “So, I’ll help you. Merlin knows you don’t know the first thing about women. I’ll bet you’ve given her chocolate for the past sixteen years.”

Greg just shrugs, why argue? She’s right. 

She pushes back another loose strand of glossy dark hair, “That’s what I thought.” 

+

An hour later, Gregory has exactly thirty galleons in his pocket and a package of very feminine letter parchment. He feels around in the material of his pocket, his fingers fondling the change. 

Pansy has left to have tea with Daphne and Tracey (who apparently has been forgiven for being a tart), and Greg is once again on his own. He strolls back up the street towards The Three Broomsticks with a goofy smile on his face (but only when he’s sure no one is looking)

Two second-year Slytherins smirk at him, and he growls in return. He snickers to himself when they slip as they scampered off.

Gregory has exactly thirty galleons in his pocket, and he wants to buy Pansy a present. He looks around and quickly ducks into Gladrags.

He wants to buy her something she’ll like, something she’ll enjoy. But he has no fucking idea what that might be.

There is a pair of sterling silver berets in the display at the counter. They are simple, just a woven pattern. Greg thinks about the way Pansy’s straight strands of shiny dark hair are constantly being flicked behind her shoulders.

The clerk at the til see’s him staring and turns to him, “Can I help you with something?”

+

Gregory has exactly two galleons in his pocket, a crumpled list, a present for his mother, and a pair of silver berets.

Three days later, everyone packs up and gets ready to board the train for Christmas hols. He waits for Pansy to be alone. His palms are sweaty, he’s pretty sure he’s going to sweat through the fancy paper he had the clerk wrap the box in. He’s also pretty sure he might actually pass out with nerves.

He needs sugar, stat.

She’s sitting alone with the latest issue of Witch Weekly; glossy snaps of Oliver Wood and his new Kiwi girlfriend splash across the cover as they dodge the flash of cameras. Puddlemere United had always been an awful team, so it seems fitting that their new Keeper is former Gryffindor trash.

He coughs, trying to catch her attention. It works. She pops her head up, startled.

“Oh, it’s you.” She says, trying to sound unnerved. She turns back down to her magazine, and he shuffles over to dump his body into the armchair beside her. He swipes at invisible lint on the knee of his trousers and then takes a deep breath. Pansy turns her head to glare at him, a look of mild annoyance on her face.

“Gregory.” She says coolly, “what do you want?”

He grunts, “nothin’.” She looks over the edge of her magazine, and he gulps. A few more moments of awkward silence passes before Greg slaps down the small box on the edge of the cushion beside Pansy. His hands are trembling all the while.

Pansy slides her eyes away from the page again and looks down at the seat beside her, then at Greg.

“What’s this?”

“It’s …it’s for you.” He stutters out. His heart beats wilder than the wings of a Ukrainian Ironbelly. He watches as Pansy reaches out for the gift with her small dainty fingers.

He can’t watch; he just can’t watch the look on her face. So as soon as it’s in her hands, he shoves himself up and hurries to his dormitory.

+

Gregory will never get to see the look the flittered across Pansy’s small features, he’ll never know if she smiled at the sight of it, or if she’d have kissed his cheek in joy.

But he does know this: on the train that afternoon, he caught a glimpse of silver just above her ear, and the small glint of her eye as she passed by him on her way to sit with Daphne and Tracey.

It’s a start.


	3. A Pretty Face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Gregory,” Pansy called out, “you might want to remove those bits of biscuits from the corner of your mouth, first.”

**Prompt:** _Misnomer_

Gregory realizes that in the grand spectrum of things, he should have asked more questions. That’s always his problem, jumping into situations with his fists and knuckles without real knowledge of why.

But Pansy had come into the dining room that night with puffy eyes and a runny nose, and he knew she had been crying. Her sniffles were all-consuming as she pushed her spoon around in her bowl of dandelion soup.

He watched as her eyes flicked to Draco, who went from scowling at his bowl of untouched soup to the Gryffindor table. She sniffled louder, clearly trying to get his attention, but his head never turned in her direction; instead, he quickly rose and exited the Great Hall without uttering a word to anyone. 

Pansy’s shoulders slumped; he could see the tears on her lashes. Her eyes fluttered up, and she met his stare, “Gregory,” she said softly, “you think I’m pretty, right?”

“Yes!” he responded quickly, but all that came out was bits of crumbs. Greg swallowed the last bite of his butter biscuit and then cleared his throat, “Uh, yeah, sure.”

She looked up at him with a small smile, her lashes fluttered. “So, I don’t walk around like there is something foul stuck under my nose, do I?”  
  


Greg shook his head so hard it hurt. He clenched his fists, “Who said you did?” 

She looked down at her bowl, then back up at Greg, “Cas Saunders. Hufflepuff.” Greg immediately got up and began to stomp towards the Hufflepuff table, cracking out his knuckles as he did so.  
  


“Gregory,” Pansy called out, “you might want to remove those bits of biscuits from the corner of your mouth, first.”

…Right. 

+

Skele-Gro works, Gregory knows this – but Salazar’s Boots does the process hurt. His hand shoots hot white pain through his body with every muscle that twitches in it or bone that repairs its structure.

“Mr. Goyle,” Madam Pomfrey says sternly as she touches up his bandaging, “you need to stop moving, you’re just causing yourself more unnecessary pain.” He grunts when she puts pressure on one of his knuckles.

“I don’t know why I’m even helping; students who condone violence do not deserve the help of magical treatment.” She continues to fix his dressings with a scowl on her face. She’d done this three times already – lecturing him on the disgrace of him using his fist to solve his problems.

Greg cries out when she pushes down on the clip, “oh shush,” she chastises before leaving.

Yes, Gregory really should have thought this through. Nothing seems worth the pain he’s in now.

He had been under the impression that he was just going to scare a snot-nosed girl with pigtails and a wide gob. But as it turned out, Cas was short for Cassius, not Cassandra, and that Cassius had quite a hard face.

Gregory had shattered his hand in three places when making contact with Saunders’s nose in the middle of the hallway after dinner. And while Cas had left the Hospital wing only an hour after admission with just a slight crooked quality to his nose, Gregory was to stay overnight for observation.

The last thing Gregory thinks before sleep slowly kicks in is that Pansy didn’t even see him punch the pillock out.

+

Pansy comes to see him in the morning; she’s got the barrettes he bought her at Christmas on. That’s a good sign – right?

She sits on the side of his bed; her eyes focused intently on the bandaged hand. He stares at her for what feels like the longest time before she speaks.

“I didn’t think you’d hurt yourself in the process.” She says quietly, with a cool edge to it. “I just thought you’d rough him up a little; teach him a lesson, you know?”

She frowns and smoothes the edge of his bed covers, “you weren’t supposed to break your bloody hand off his face, you great barmpot.” At this, she looks up and meets his deer-caught-in-headlights expression. “You’re a right prat, you are.”

He shrugs, “sorry, I guess.” She swats his leg and gives a small smile, “but at least he knows not to be talking about you, now.”

She smiles again, “Yeah, you should have heard it; everyone was talking about how he fell like a limp twig. It was fantastic.” She touches her barrette and then traces the edges of the clip holding his bandage in place.

“Thank-you.” She says quietly again, then shifts and looks up at the clock, “I should leave, class begins in ten minutes.”

Greg nods and watches as she grabs her bag off the floor. She begins to walk away, but stops and comes back to his bedside, “I’ll come by later,” then frowns and adds quickly, “I mean if I have time.”

He smiles, “sure.”

She nods and quickly leans down to kiss his cheek. His breath catches in his throat. Her lips are warm against the cold feeling of his skin. He thinks he might have died and gone to a better place.

Then she pulls away just as quickly and readjusts the strap of her bag. “Bye, Gregory.”

He watches as she leaves the hospital wing and smiles. Maybe he should get hurt more often. 


End file.
